Tag
poems

As a traveler, people often ask me about my favourite city. I like to respond that my favourite city is the place where my love resides. I stole the words from a Persian poet.

ONCE a beloved asked her lover: “Friend,

You have seen many places in the world!

Now – which of all these cities was the best?

He said: “The city where my sweetheart lives!”

Jelaluddin Rumi lived in the thirteenth century. I have often come across Rumi’s poems in books. Rumi was raised in a deeply religious family. Later in his life he started drifting to mysticism. And with that came beautiful verses like these…

Come, come again, whoever you are, come!

Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!

Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,

Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are .

And

Seek knowledge which unravels mysteries

Before your life comes to close

Give up that non-existence which looks like existence,

Seek that Existence which looks like non-existence!

And finally

When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.